Re: Death of RPG38 and RPG36 -and- more! -- RPG400-L

Rob,

I guess I fall somewhere in the middle of your categorization: Oursoftware (originally written for a /34!) and data are primarily 36E; allnew stuff is RPG IV or ILE RPG.

Before I came to work here it was about 99% 36E (a few RPG III programs- since converted). The company went through two hardware upgradesbefore I arrived, and had me do a V4R4 -to- V5R1 some afterwards. And,last year, upgraded to an i5 520.

While, as I said, all new stuff is IV, there has never been a compellingreason to port the OCL and RPG36 code to III or IV. Most mods are onlya few lines. On occasion I'll write a IV program that the II programcalls to get what it needs.

Anyway, I guess my point is that even some of the late bloomers continueto upgrade hardware (and software). My gut feeling (i.e., no empiricaldata to back it up), though, is you are right about the upgrades.People that are happy with their software/hardware will not feelcompelled to move up. For the rest of us, like moi, the PRPQ /may/force us to do a full conversion to native; probably depends upon boththe costs and the consequences of not doing so.

By this time, IBM has probably analyzed the data and figured they'veconverted most of the old 36 (and 34) boxes to some sort of iSeriesbox. There are stragglers (I know a few), but the numbers are probablytoo minuscule for IBM to keep investing resources in 36E and (god helpus) 38E.

For contractors I see this as a potential opportunity to generatebusiness by helping organizations move out of the 36E. Somewhat likeY2K but on a much smaller scale. I do /not/ foresee people abandoningthe iSeries because of this. They simply will or will not upgradeperiod. And people like me will, based upon available resources, haveto determine if the old code and databases should be modernized or PRPQ-ed.



        * Jerry C. Adams
*iSeries Programmer/Analyst
B&W Wholesale Distributors, Inc.* *
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        615.995.7024
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rob@xxxxxxxxx wrote:

Aaron,
I look at it this way. The people who run straight RPG36 or straightRPG38 have an old machine plastered into a closet somewhere, like the"Legends of iSeries" story. They couldn't care less about a new machinenot supporting these ancient languages because they don't upgrade. Andfrankly, why should IBM care about losing business to companies thathaven't purchased a thing in 15 years?
The other side of the fence is the people that are running mainly RPG oreven RPGLE based code, and have some RPG36 or RPG38 code. These peoplemay be a growing business and purchase new equipment on occasion. Thesepeople will be affected. I suspect that many of these people would begrateful at the chance to have a "business" reason to convert these lastfew applications to something more current. And not only the IT people...
Rob Berendt